Most men never reach their potential. They fall short of who they want to be and live mediocre lives.
Even the “best” of us — the ones standing at 6’4, walking around with washboard abs, a beautiful girlfriend by their side, working high-paying jobs, and meeting all the typical standards for “a good life” — are falling short.
So what does that mean? What if that’s not you? What if you’re struggling to make ends meet?
If the most successful men in the world aren’t reaching their potential, how will you?
In reality, you shouldn’t listen to other people’s perceptions of success to determine what kind of man you want to be. It means that society’s definition of success is incomplete.
In this article, I will teach you how to be the man you’ve always wanted to be. Buckle up because you might be in for a rude (but life-changing) awakening.
1. Hit the Gym and Improve Your Health
Becoming the man you want to be begins with building the body you want to have.
I don’t care if you don’t like working out.
Here’s the truth: you don’t “not like working out”; you’re just lazy.
You don’t like discomfort, which is why you’re not the man you want to be.
What if everything that you’ve ever wanted for your life is on the other side of everything that scares the heck out of you?
If you’re serious about your success, this won’t deter you. You’ll have to suffer to get to where you want to be. You’re going to have to struggle. That’s just life.
I don’t care if you bench 500 pounds, run a 5-minute mile, or get an 8-pack.
The gym is about so much more than just tangible results from exercising. The most important benefit of a regular gym routine is actually psychological.
To become the man you’ve always wanted to be, you need to start working like it, and improve your physical health.
2. Stop Consuming Garbage
This isn’t just about the food you eat, but that’s part of it.
Don’t eat like crap.
But also, there’s more to a diet than just the food you put in your body.
Fix your food diet, but also clean up your information diet. This is a big one for development as a man.
Men who consume trash information adopt trash habits. Men who consume information that negatively affects their life are doing the same things that men who eat nothing but cheeseburgers and ice cream are doing.
As a man, you have a responsibility to learn about the world.
No one’s going to do it for you. No one’s going to make your life better and your mind more informed, but you.
That leads me to the next point.
3. Accept Responsibility For Your Whole Life
If you’re not the man you want to be, it’s probably because of one specific issue:
You don’t accept responsibility for what you do and what happens to you. You probably look for excuses.
You may even do it unconsciously.
I get that because I’ve been there. We can help you with that.
But whether it’s a conscious or unconscious behavior, avoiding responsibility and making excuses is terminal for the pursuit of achieving your goals and living a better life.
Your struggles are valid — everyone has a reason to miserable and resentful.
Understood?
Now don’t let that misery and resentment hold you back.
The more you do this, the happier and less miserable you’ll be.
4. Do Things That Scare You
Unless you’re Evel Knievel and you’re fearless or agoraphobic and too anxious to leave your home, the odds are that you have some pretty normal fears.
You’re scared of not getting your way. You’re scared of failing. You’re scared of getting hurt.
You have the same fears as a 5-year-old riding his bike for the first time.
Fear is a valid emotion — I still feel scared all the time — but it is not a valid excuse for becoming miserable. No one deserves to be afraid and miserable all the time. That is not the life you want.
This is similar to the responsibility point, but we’ve taken it further.
Fear is fine, but don’t let it hold you back. Jump head first into things that scare the living crap out of you.
It’ll either change your life, or it will help you learn how to do better next time.
5. Be Grounded and Spend Time Alone
Do you know how the Buddha found enlightenment?
I’ll spare you the long version of the story, but basically, he sat in the forest for a long time and figured it out – by himself.
You might not want to be like Buddha. You might want completely different things from Buddha, but you’ll still need to do some self-examination and some reflection.
To become the man you’ve always wanted to you need to figure out what the man you’ve always wanted to be is like. You also need to figure this out for yourself.
I don’t want models on Instagram to tell you what you want.
I want you to figure out what you want, for yourself.
Time alone will give you the direction you’ve always needed. From there, add the resources you need to get where you want to go.
6. Journal and Meditate
These two habits should be cornerstones for any man trying to be better and stronger.
Across history, the most powerful and successful people have been huge proponents of mindfulness and journaling.
Writing and thinking (and learning how to not think) are habits that help you gain control over your emotions, actions, and the flow of your life. These habits help you make your life predictable.
It’s easy to be calm, stoic, and stable when your life is predictable.
Strive for a life that is predictable in the best ways — a life that’s predictable because you’re making the predictions.
My journaling habit is simple: everyone morning, I free write long hand for 5 minutes.
My meditation habit is also pretty simple: I follow a guided meditation on my phone 1x per day. If I’m stressed, I’ll do 2x meditation in a day.
Doing this gives me the mental clarity to pursue and accomplish my goals.
7. Don’t Give Up
I can’t tell you exactly what you need to do to reach your dreams.
If you want to build an auto shop, I wouldn’t ask myself for advice. I’ve never built an auto shop.
However, I am quite experienced in reaching the goals I’ve set for myself. I am the man I want to be.
I have overcome my doubts, built businesses, and become the kind of man I’m proud to be. Those were transformational experiences for me, and they taught me something very valuable:
In the pursuit of any serious goal, you cannot give up.
If you give up, you will not be successful. You will not become the kind of man you want to be. You will not get all of those hopes and dreams you wrote about to yourself in your journal.
When the going gets tough, what kind of man are you?
Are you a man who rises, or a man who falls?
The answer will tell you everything about the life you are going to live.
8. Invest in Yourself
The most devastating thing that fear does for your development as a man is that it stops your learning.
Scared people do not seek new knowledge — they’re too scared too.
If you aim to be the man you truly want to be, this cannot be you. You must become a sponge for knowledge. You must become someone who chases knowledge in every capacity.
Invest in books, courses, coaching, mentors, whatever it is that will take you to where you want to go.
The reason that you aren’t where you want to be is that you don’t know enough.
We have to change that. We have to make you someone who views investments as zero-sum activities (source).
You cannot become the man you want to be with the knowledge you have now. You must invest in your future self’s happiness and prosperity.
9. Love Yourself
“Loving yourself” might not fit with the other advice in this article. Heck, loving yourself sounds like kind of corny and generic advice.
But do you do it? Answer that honestly.
So far, we’ve talked about standing up to your BS, improving habits, and making some existential shifts, but nothing about love.
That’s the thing about most advice for young men today. Most advice for young men today is aimed at being successful and having more self-esteem, but it says nothing about love.
This, when you think about it, is pretty messed up. Love is essential to being a person, and most men’s advice ignores it.
We’re not going to do that. We will talk about love, and most importantly, we will talk about loving yourself.
Without loving yourself, you cannot love others, achieve your goals happily, or make peace with your life situation.
Of all the things I want you to do to become the man you want to be, loving yourself is the first thing.
Sure, it’s corny, but when you get there, you’ll thank me.
10. Help Other People Along the Way
When people begin journeys of “self-improvement,” they spend a lot of time focusing on the “self” but not nearly as much time on the “improvement” part.
This is the biggest problem with the self-help world.
As you start to improve your life, you need to realize something essential: the second you take the first step, you are a whole level of self-improvement above someone else.
The second you start, someone wants to know what you’ve learned.
You don’t need to write a book. You don’t need to start a blog or create a self-help course, especially if you’re just in the early stages.
You need to take the time to help other people who haven’t learned what you already know.
This isn’t just what you do because you’re a good person; this is something you should do as your obligation as a man looking to improve his life.
Takeaways
Odds are, you’re going to close this article and go about your day, doing nothing to become the man you want to be.
But is that really how you want to live your life? Is that the man you want to be?
Becoming the man that you’ve always wanted to be starts the second you figure out who that man is, and this article has given you tons of different ways that you can get started. All of the information you need is available to you.
But most people still struggle. Most people don’t become who they want to be.
Why?
Mostly, it’s a discipline issue or some form of it. There’s nothing wrong with you or your dreams, but your execution needs work. You need some help getting the ball rolling.
That’s why I want to tell you about my exclusive coaching program, led by my team of experienced men’s coaches and me.
We’ll help you tap into that inner strength and become the high-value man you’ve always desperately desired to be.
See, this program isn’t only going to help you break free from nice guy behaviors, build quality romantic relationships, and become a stronger Grounded Man. It’s also going to provide you with support from both myself and my elite community of men. Our coaches provide informed professional advice on how to play hard to get, among other important relationship principles.
No drama, no games, just growth. This will be the last self-development group you’ll ever need.
With this program, you’ll be tapped into your own “band of brothers” and you’ll also have access to the best training course for men in existence today, as well as weekly calls with my team of inspiring and determined coaches. There are no boys, no complainers, or dabblers, this program is for serious men only.
Click here to watch my new client orientation.
